


Life Goes On

by Anonymous



Category: In Other Lands | The Turn of the Story - Sarah Rees Brennan
Genre: Elliot Is A Good Dad, M/M, Post-Mpreg, Wedding Fluff, cute kid, so is Luke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 12:22:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18660355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Elliot and Luke's early days as parents, and their subsequent wedding. Takes place after No One Asked For This.





	Life Goes On

Elliot’s POV

Caring for a very new human is...difficult. Sometimes even nightmarish. How can one tiny being produce so many noises, smells and waste? 

The only saving grace is that he loves Daniel in a way he’s never loved anyone, not even Luke (although that would be wildly inappropriate) or Serene (same.) He doubted his ability to truly care for a child all through his pregnancy, thinking that surely once he saw him he would feel nothing. Or worse, feel disgust at the prospect of raising him.

But that didn’t happen. He’d been too groggy upon waking to really process what was going on, and just looked at Daniel for about ten seconds, feeling numb and disbelieving. There was the baby he’d imagined inside him for months and then there was this one, who didn’t even seem like the same entity. He almost asked the medic if she was sure this was actually his child.

Then the baby made a noise like a hiccup and gripped Elliot’s finger, and a seismic shift took place inside. 

You’re mine, Elliot thought. I’m here. And I’m not going anywhere.

Weeks later, both he and Luke are still captivated by Daniel’s every sound, expression, and fuzzy red hair that is shaping up to be just like Elliot’s, the poor thing.

“It’s a curse,” Elliot sighs, petting Daniel’s head as he walks up and down with him. It helps him fall asleep, which is a major bonus. “I’m sorry you didn’t get the Sunborn gene for hair, sweetheart. But don’t worry. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be book-smart, and that’s more important than looks any day.”

You’re like me.

Elliot freezes in place, remembering his father’s words. They’re like cold water over his mood. 

No one will ever love you enough to stay.

He looks at Daniel, who is drifting off to sleep, unaware of his father’s personal demons. 

No matter what mistakes he makes in the future, Elliot vows never to speak that way to his son. 

Once he’s put Daniel down in his crib, Elliot curls up in bed with a book. That’s all he’s been wanting to do lately--make up for lost time reading and sleeping. 

Luke comes in, fresh from training, and peeks into the room. 

“Is Daniel taking a nap?”

Elliot nods, engrossed in a rather offensively romanticized account about fairies. “Just put him down.”

After a few minutes, the bed dips and Luke’s wings tickle the side of his face. He rolls his eyes and sits up, allowing one wing to slide behind him like a pillow. 

“I’ve missed this,” Luke says, relaxing next to him. Elliot smiles and makes a hum of agreement, only looking up from his book when he feels Luke’s fingers on his stomach.

“You know there aren’t any more babies inside me,” he comments. “You won’t feel anything but my lunch digesting.”

Luke chuckles. “I know. I just sort of miss feeling him move in there. It was nice.”

“It was nice for you,” Elliot retorts. “All I felt was incredible pain when he kicked me in the ribs, or punched me in the kidneys. I don’t miss that.”

Luke traces Elliot’s surgery scar lightly. “This is healing well.”

“Serene calls it my first battle scar,” Elliot tells him. It makes him feel both proud and a little incredulous that his body really did that whenever he looks at it.

Daniel makes a noise, and Elliot’s attuned enough to know that it’s just a sleep-noise, but Luke sits up and looks over at him anxiously.

“Is he okay?”

“Fine,” Elliot says, pushing him gently back down. “He’s probably just dreaming.”

“How do you know?” 

“Because he always makes any displeasure loudly known, so unless he’s screaming, I assume he’s fine.” 

Luke doesn’t seem mollified. In fact, Elliot is rather offended when he gets up and checks on Daniel, who is in fact still asleep.

“I told you,” he mutters when Luke joins him again. 

“I know. I just worry about him,” Luke sighs. “Don’t you worry that he might suffocate or something? Or not wake up at all?”

Elliot’s heart clenches at the thought, which he promptly shoves away. 

“He’s--that won’t happen,” he says, trying to sound confident. “We won’t let it.”

He waits until Luke’s nodded off to check on Daniel, who remains peacefully asleep and breathing normally. 

Be okay, Elliot thinks, even though there’s no need. Just be okay, and I’ll never say anything about your hair or how smart you might be because I don’t actually care. Just be okay.

***

Of course, the elephant--or rather, harpy--in the room has to be addressed at some point. And Elliot’s seen Luke running his hands anxiously over Daniel’s back often enough to know what’s on his mind.

“He might not get wings,” he says at last. “In all the research I did, they said that only full and half-harpies tend to develop them. At worst, he might have a small, non-functional pair. And those won’t show up for years.”

Luke’s mouth twists as if he doesn’t know whether to be relieved or stay worried. Elliot knows the feeling.

“He can carry them off,” Elliot says, trying to keep the mood light. “And he might even be able to wear normal shirts if they’re small enough. It won’t be that bad.”

What he doesn’t say is that as much as he loves Luke’s wings, he won’t be disappointed if Daniel doesn’t inherit them. At the same time, he feels he could happily slaughter anyone who might bully his son for having wings, and he doubts Luke would be inclined to stop him.

 

***

Their wedding takes place exactly eight months after Daniel’s birthday, which is apparently leaving it terribly late by Sunborn standards. Elliot wants to strangle the next person who says they’re “so glad” that they “finally” made things official, as if the fact that they’re still together and raising a child isn’t official enough. 

Elliot has never given any thought to what kind of wedding he’d want, so he’s happy to let Rachel and Michael take the lead as far as decorations, cake, entertainment, and the guest list. Serene is honored to be the equivalent of Luke’s best man, and Elliot chooses Louise. Or rather, she tells him what role she wants in the ceremony and he agrees.

The guest list does include as many harpies as will deign to attend, but the wedding takes place in winter and all nearby bodies of water are void of merpeople, so Elliot has to resign himself to only a slightly interspecies wedding.

He and Luke work on their own vows every chance they get. Elliot has a hard time toning down the sarcasm and bad jokes because some things are simply not appropriate when pledging eternal love. Luke’s tend to veer into the territory of teeth-rotting. 

Elliot, naturally, does all the editing. 

“You’re not calling me that,” he says brusquely, crossing out offensively sentimental phrases with abandon. “Or that. Oh, God, please don’t call our first kiss ‘illuminating.’ You already knew you were gay.”

Luke tries to grab the piece of paper away from him. “I’m telling the truth, it was illuminating! For me, anyway. I didn’t say how you pushed me out of a harpy nest right after.”

Elliot perks up. “You should leave that in! As an touch of unexpected humor! The crowd will eat it up.”

Luke sighs heavily, bouncing Daniel on his lap. “Your father has no romance in his soul,” he informs their child. “But fortunately for us, Sunborns are naturally gifted at finding true love.”

Elliot looks up, ready to snap something at him in annoyance, but stops. “Say that again, about Sunborns?”

Luke repeats it and Elliot nearly melts into the floor.

“Put that in,” he says softly. “In your vows. I don’t care what else you say, just remember that bit.”

“Why?” Luke asks, then it hits him. “Oh.”

Elliot leans in and kisses him slowly, like a reward. He lays a messy one on Daniel’s cheek as well. 

“Your dad is a genius,” he says. “But we must never tell him too often, or it’ll go to his head.”

***

“You were the first person who was ever rude to me in my whole life,” Luke says as they stand under a delicately constructed arch near the Sunborn fortress, with everyone they know seated (some on benches and others in the trees above) nearby. “I couldn’t imagine why. I thought you were just nervous to be at camp, and that we’d warm up to each other in a few days. We didn’t, though.”

Laughter can be heard from the crowd, and Luke blushes, but resolutely continues.

“I couldn’t quite understand how we became friends,” he goes on. “I only know that the more everyone told you how annoying you were, the more I wanted to make sure you had at least one person--besides Serene, of course--who didn’t think that about you. Sometimes you seemed lonely, and I wanted to make you feel better. Then, of course, you’d tell me to go away or call me a name, and I’d almost regret it.”

Elliot smiles in spite of himself. He does regret at least a few of the names, now.

“But after a while, I wanted to spend time with you for different reasons. You’re smart and incredibly brave. You never let anyone tell you something is a lost cause. You may not use weapons, but you don’t accept things the way they are, you fight to make them better….and you do. You have. You’re a remarkable person, Elliot Schafer.”

Elliot tries not to cry, because he’s made foolhardy bets with half the Sunborn family and Serene and Golden that he will not shed any “tender masculine tears” before the ceremony is over. 

“I told you a very short time ago that you had no romance in your soul,” Luke continues, and gets an appreciative laugh from the crowd. “Everyone knows the Sunborns are good at fighting and winning wars. But we’re also good at finding true love.”

A sitcom-worthy “Awwww” greets this sentiment, and Elliot would almost be disgusted if it weren’t such a perfect moment, and those words weren’t addressed to him.

“Someone once told me that no one would ever love me enough to stay with me,” Elliot says when it’s his turn. Luke’s eyes widen because this is the first time Elliot’s ever brought it up in public.

“I’m happy to say they were wrong,” he continues, and an appreciative and slightly relieved chuckle goes through the assemblage. “But it took me a long time to imagine that would be the case. I had no reason to believe otherwise.”

Luke holds his hands tighter.

“It wasn’t love at first sight for me,” Elliot says with a smile. “It was more like ‘Who’s this blond person who wants to take my phone away?’”

Luke smiles, but Elliot can see worry in his eyes and wants to reassure him that he’s taking this very, very seriously.

“It took me four years to realize how amazing you really were,” Elliot goes on. “And most of the time, I was calling you ‘loser’ and thinking you had a perfect life and never had any real problems. I always told you to go away and leave me alone. Very fortunately, you didn’t.”

Laughter combined with sighs. Elliot is sort of enjoying this, but it’s time to get to the point.

“Luke, I love that you’re not perfect. I love how you try to help everyone you possibly can. I love that you read occasionally, which I used to fear you’d never get into the habit of doing. I love how much you love our son.”

Luke’s eyes are now filling with tears, and Elliot hurries through the rest of his vows before his own do the same.

“But...I love you for knowing and loving me, too,” Elliot says, voice wobbling traitorously.  
“I don’t make it easy for people to love me. And because of that, I always thought I would be someone’s second choice, a sort of consolation prize. But you don’t see me or treat me that way.” And now he’s crying. He sees Serene and Louise smile triumphantly at each other, damn them. 

“Never mind the rest,” he chokes out, and the crowd laughs appreciatively. “Luke Sunborn, I take you to be my annoying, bewinged, gorgeous loser husband. Forever.”

They kiss, and the world disappears for a few moments, and Elliot would be happy to never stop kissing Luke--his husband!--except that they both need to breathe eventually.

As soon as they stop, they’re swarmed by happy Sunborns all throwing various floral things at them (Elliot is fervently glad there’s no rice in this world) and shouting congratulatory sentiments. Luke’s wings come out and shield them from most of it, which makes Elliot laugh, and everywhere he turns someone is hugging him or patting him very hard on the back. He finds himself holding Daniel rather haphazardly as he and Luke dash back down the aisle, and he has to stop and adjust the baby more securely on his hip once they’re clear of the crowd.

“We did it!” he crows, even though Daniel’s more interested in removing petals from his hair and eating them. “Daniel, Dad and I got married! You are now legitimized! Yay!”

Luke is laughing and removing all stray petals from Daniel’s grasp, one arm around Elliot’s waist. 

“I’m starving,” he says. “I was so nervous I threw up my breakfast this morning.”

“So that’s all it was, nerves?” Elliot says teasingly. “Thank God, I thought you might be pregnant.” 

Luke kisses him. “Let’s go have some cake.”


End file.
